The proposed research will examine a basic facet of interpersonal interventions: nurses' listening behavior. The long-term objective of this research is to increase knowledge about nurses' listening behavior, thereby potentially gaining an understanding of how to increase, in an economical manner, the effectiveness of interpersonal nursing interventions and associated patient outcomes. The specific knowledge to be sought concerns the relational messages perceived in nurses' listening behavior during an interpersonal intervention. "Relational messages" are those verbal and non-verbal expressions that indicate how two people regard each other, regard their relationship, or regard themselves within the context of the relationship. The study's aim is to determine: 1) what dimensions of relational messages are perceived in nurses listening behavior during a simulated videotaped interpersonal intervention; 2) the relationship among reciprocity of nurse-patient behavior, rate of nurses' listening activities, and perceived relational messages; and 3) the relationship among reciprocity of nurse-patient behavior, nurses use of interpersonal touch, and perceived relational messages. "Reciprocity" is the matching of interactants' verbal and nonverbal behavior over time. To achieve the study's aim, a videotape will be constructed, consisting of introductory information for subjects and six videotaped segments from a preliminary data set. The data set consists of 27 interactions between a nurse and a professional actress, playing the role of a patient whose closest friend had recently died, recorded in a simulated clinical setting. The six segments show different combinations of reciprocity, rate of nurses' listening activities, and use of nurses' interpersonal touch as they occurred naturally during the interactions. The videotape will be seen individually by 145 college women, and, at the end of each segment, the women will be asked to pause and respond to a 30-item instrument that has been tested and found to reliably measure observers' perceptions of relational messages. Responses will be factor analyzed to determine the perceived relational dimensions, and multiple regression will be used to determine the relationship among the variables. Although additional work in a clinical setting will be needed, by knowing the nature of relational messages in nurses' listening behavior, and the type of behavior associated with positive messages, it should be possible for nurses to display the behavior during even brief interpersonal interventions, to teach the behavior to other nurses, and to examine the relationship of the behavior to differential patient outcomes.